1. Field
One or more embodiments of the present invention relate to a service for easily setting up channel setup information (a remote access transport agent (RATA) profile) for remote access. More specifically, the present invention relates to a universal plug and play (UPnP) apparatus and method for providing a remote access service by inputting product identification number (PIN) information about a UPnP remote access server (RAS) device, receiving channel setup information (a RATA profile) for remote access using a WiFi protected setup (WPS) protocol, and remotely accessing the UPnP RAS device.
2. Description of the Related Art
According to the popularity of home networks, a conventional PC network-oriented environment increasingly extends to an environment including home appliances using various lower network techniques. Therefore, a home network middleware technology, such as universal plug and play (UPnP), has been proposed in order to network these home appliances in a unified manner by using an IP protocol.
The UPnP technology enables home appliances to be peer-to-peer networked on the basis of a distributed and open networking structure instead of being under centralized control.
With regard to home network middleware, in general, a UPnP device models its service as an action and a state variable, and a UPnP control point (CP) automatically discovers the UPnP device to use its service.
The UPnP device architecture version 1.0 uses distributed and open networking to discover a UPnP device via an IP multicast in the home network. However, an IP multicast service is not guaranteed to be normally provided within the range of the Internet, making it impossible to control the UPnP device via the Internet since such control of the UPnP device needs information obtained by discovering the UPnP device.
Therefore, when the UPnP device or a CP device is physically separated and far from the home network, UPnP remote access architecture has been proposed so as to allow the UPnP device or the CP device to operate normally as if both were physically in the same network. The UPnP remote access architecture defines a remote access server (RAS) device within the home network and a remote access client (RAC) device within a remote network.